Surfing the Mobile Wave

To avoid being swamped by data traffic, mobile operators must wring the most out of IP, IT and their Internet partners.
BY PAT R IC K D ON E G A N
nnovation in cost control and optimization of end products or services are the key success factors in any business. Having barely scratched the surface of the new 3G and 4G mobile broadband opportunities, the challenge for mobile operators is one that is the most difficult at points of discontinuity: not merely embracing the disruptive change that is breaking down conventional business models, but actively beckoning that change forward. The new challenges are about realigning mobile network business models to get better leverage out of IP, IT and Internet partners. Lower cost, higher performance IP switches and routers are widely deployed at the core and sometimes the metro part of the mobile network. But in the backhaul, operators margins are increasingly threatened by trying to scale TDM circuits in step with the often alarming surge in new mobile broadband data traffic. Extending packet technology out to the cell site allows the cost per bit of transporting traffic to be reduced, albeit with the initial pain and disruption of changing traditional TDMoriented operating practices. Getting more out of IP is a two-step journey. The second is to transition to a flatter network such as WiMAX or LTE, with a common voice and data core, BSC or RNC functions collapsed and a direct interface between base stations.

This will enable further cost reduction by populating the network with lower cost, more scalable equipment and generating bandwidth savings by enabling some core network functionality to be deployed out toward the network edge. A flatter architecture doesnt mean just lower costs. It also enables lower latency, resulting in better performance

On the one hand, a sharper recognition of these two fundamentals frees up mobile operators to focus on differentiating themselves from one another as delivery partners for the content and applications ecosystems. At the same time, it also provides a better basis for clawing back some of the consumer loyalty to their own brand that mobile

from existing applications and a sharper business case for new generations of real-time multimedia applications. Which brings me to the IT and Internet sectors. Operators need to recognize that in a broadband environment, content and applications are king. Its the content guys that primarily drive the consumer to buy the network service not the other way around. But although the Internet players can afford to think of the network as a dumb pipe up to a certain point, there are also a number of high-value capabilities that they cant deliver without a key subset of operator smarts. They cant deliver location-based services, for example. And they cant orchestrate single-source provisioning of a common set of services delivered optimally and uniformly across the socalled three screens of the PC, TV and mobile phone. 3G: IP: RNC: BSC: LT E : 4G: I T: TDM:

operators have conceded to handset vendors over many years, and the big beasts of the Internet jungle more recently. Within the IT industry, a lot of the answers lie in the network management domain. As traffic increases inexorably, and as patterns of usage become ever more dynamic and unpredictable, leveraging new data-centric network and performance management capabilities that can provide an end-to-end view of the network rather than a series of elementcentric snapshots is going to be key. This will not only allow network investments to be managed more efficiently; it will also enable the end-users quality of experience to be optimized according to a number of metrics such as by application, by time of day or by type of user. When a large wave rises up in front of you, you often have a better chance of surviving its impact by swimming rapidly towards it. No matter how tempting it might be, your prospects are often not best served by trying to swim away or by just standing still. Patrick Donegan is a senior analyst at Heavy Reading, a research firm. For more information, visit www.heavyreading.com.

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